And So The Godless World
by Levity Lirum
Summary: After Ian Rider died, MI6 was expecting Alex to follow the bait. What they did not know was that Ian and another had promised John they would give Alex a choice. With Ian dead, only The Poltegeist remains to enforce that promise. Eventual Alex/Yassen.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: 'Stormbreaker', 'Alex Rider', any associated entities, or any copyrighted material pertaining therein is reasonably protected by the Copyright Act, and is not intended to infringe upon any copyrighted material.

**Pairing: **Eventual Alex/Yassen, Jack/ Unintroduced OC.

**AN:** Trying a new thing, but can't seem to stay on one story for long. Into Alex Rider at the moment. Others are half-done. And I've borrowed who paragraphs from the book Stormbreaker for this chapter.

* * *

A gun at a funeral? Why? Why would bank managers carry guns?

"Let's get out of here." Suddenly Jack was at his side. "Cemeteries give me the creeps."

"Yes. And quite a few creeps have turned up," Alex muttered.

An amused sound came from behind him. Alex turned to see a slim, lithe, average sized man with his blue-black hair in a low ponytail and very blue eyes. There was something brittle in the man's familiar smile, but, as far as Alex could tell, the warmth was genuine, as was the almost-affection in his glacial eyes. Unlike many others at the funeral, the man felt distinctly, strongly familiar to the teen.

Then Jack turned and smiled. "Liam! It's been a while. Four years or so, wasn't it?"

Liam gave Jack a warm and vaguely impersonal smile. "Nearly five, actually."

Alex suddenly remembered. Liam Grey had been one of his father's friends who had insisted on checking up on his friend's son every so often and, as such, had dropped in and out of Alex's life until he was nine and suddenly the man was gone. Thinking back, Alex had adored Liam and had looked forward to the man's visits, but Ian had always been tense and uncomfortable when these visits came about, never leaving the two alone. Once Alex had asked what Liam's job was, and Liam had replied, an odd smile playing across his lips, that he worked for a security and counter-security business.

Liam had suddenly appeared late one night and had gone to speak with Ian in his office, ruffling his hair on the way upstairs. Alex hadn't seen the man since.

He also distinctly remembered Liam as being an eye-catching golden blond.

He turned back to Alex, and there was genuine sympathy there. "I took a job over here as soon as I heard, so I'll be in the country for at least a month if you need me."

Alex nodded, both glad and curious that Liam was back. "Thanks."

Liam nodded. "Do you want a lift home or would you prefer to walk?" He asked, directing his question towards both of them.

Jack's smile wilted a little, suddenly very aware that several of the funeral-goers were watching them. "We were going to walk. Would you like to come with us?"

Liam's smile quirked at the corners. "Yeah. I need to talk to Alex about some things."

*****

It took the trio fifteen minutes to walk the few blocks back to the house, talking idly about the weather and news and strictly avoiding any talk about Ian Rider.

It was when Liam hesitated for a moment when they turned the corner into the street that Alex noticed the STRYKERS&SON removalist van parked outside his house that the sense of wrongness returned.

"What's that doing...?" Alex began before catching the look on Liam's face, a cold fury, as the van squealed off.

The two said nothing more as they followed Jack, still chattering, up to the front door.

Jack went into the kitchen to make some tea, but he quickly looked around the house. A letter that had been on the hall table now lay on the carpet. A door that had been half-open was now closed. Tiny details, but Alex's eyes missed nothing. Somebody had been in the house. Alex was almost sure of it.

Almost as sure as he was that Liam knew who it had been.

But he wasn't certain until he got to the top floor. The door to the office which had always, always been locked, was unlocked now. Alex opened it and went in. The room was empty. Ian Rider had gone and so had everything else. The desk drawers, the cupboards, the shelves...anything that might have told him about the dead man's work had been taken.

"Alex...!" Jack was calling to him from downstairs.

He took one last look around the room before turning to leave, only to nearly collide with Liam. The blue-eyed man glanced at him and reached out to steady the teen, but was otherwise scanning the room, face stony.

"C'mon." He moved out of the way and ushered Alex out of the room, closing the door behind them and following Alex downstairs.

*****

Alex wasn't sure how Liam managed it, but he somehow convinced Jack to let him take the next day off from school to go sort through Alex's parent's stuff which was being held in storage space in London. Liam had been left the keys to give to Alex on his sixteenth birthday, but, given the circumstances, Liam felt it would be better to get Alex's mind off his uncle.

Or so he said.

At 8:07am the next morning, Liam picked Alex up in a silver Mazda, a generic model in every way and a few years old.

They'd been driving for nearly ten minutes before Alex bolstered enough courage to ask a question that had been bothering him for years.

"Why did you leave?"

Liam continued watching the road as he answered, almost as if he felt guilty. "It was getting dangerous. Someone had managed to get a hold of files on my movements; enough to know I was spending a fair amount of time in England. By the time we had found out about it, they had already narrowed down the area to your suburb. I warned Ian and he told me to stay away from you for a while. We dealt with it whilst he took you to Germany for an extended visit."

Alex absorbed this before asking his next question. "You once said you worked in security and counter-security. What did you mean?"

The teen got the impression that Liam was pleased with what questions he asked.

"I create security systems for anyone with enough money. Regrettably, I often create security by those being investigated by the law. I also have considerable experience with hacking and vault cracking; leaving me in high demand from certain clientele. Drawing attention to anything that can be held over my head is generally a bad thing. Several organizations specialising in illegal activities have been trying to 'employ' me for years."

Alex's mind froze about half-way through the explanation. "But...what...he..._why?"_

"Why would I care about you? Or why would I think you could be held over me?" Liam asked, eyebrow quirked. Alex nodded to both questions. "I am your mother's first cousin. I met your father and, to a lesser extent, your uncle through her. John recognised me as soon as we met, having been on opposite sides before, and worked out something for Helen's sake, since she was my only surviving family. Now you're what's left and I have already filed for your guardianship. You can still stay with Jack if you want, though."

Alex muttered something undecipherable and went quiet for a while, Rammstein murmuring softly across the car stereo.

The teen finally roused to off-hand comment, "They said Ian died because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt. Ian was fanatical about his seatbelt."

Liam glanced at the youth. "They probably told you that lie knowing you'd try to investigate. If you passed and figured it out, you would likely have been drafted into that organization." He commented mildly.

Alex stared, mind racing, small bits of information suddenly making sense. "But...he was a banker...wasn't he?"

"He worked at the Royal & General bank, yes. But if someone truly looked into the bank, they would find that it is only a well-made front for the something else. Both John and Ian were amongst their best field agents. No doubt they now want to complete the circle with you."

The teen frowned. "How do you know? I mean, why would they want me? I'm just a kid."

"Exactly. Do you know how few child-spys and assassins are? There are only two child-assassins active in the whole world. No spies; or at least no professional and fully trained ones at any rate. And, yes," He added, almost as an afterthought. "Thanks to your uncle, you are damn near fully trained. He's been training you since you could walk and talk."

"What?!"

Liam shot a mildly amused glance at the teen. "You speak three other languages almost fluently and know the basics and a few others. You have experience diving, skiing, extreme bike riding, rock-climbing, hiking, karate and variety of other athletics most adults don't even look at. You can also pickpocket, lie, read faces, used computers with decent sufficiency, read basic code and, on top of that, you're intelligent, willing to take risks and once you've chosen to do something, you're committed, and very little can sway you from your path."

Liam paused as they stopped at another set of traffic lights and turned to look at Alex. "John made it very clear in his will that you be trained. We, meaning Ian, Ash and I, were to tell you everything when you were sixteen and offer you a choice; follow in his footsteps and join M16, apprentice under me and I teach you what I know and let you choose your own road from there, or let you continue as a normal civilian. Now Ian is dead and Ash is in the wind and hasn't been near you since you were a baby, so I thought it best to tell you now in case something happens to me." He turned back to the road as the light changed. "Just be aware that once you're in, it is incredibly difficult to get out."

Alex vaguely wondered if he was going into shock and so remained silent until they pulled up at the gate of the storage facility.

"So what now?" Alex asked quietly, staring out the window.

Liam paused for a moment, staring at the wheel. "And now," He said, opening the door, "You decide if you want me to help you kill the man responsible for Ian's death."

* * *

We all knowhe'll say yeas but it's nice to have some feedback.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: 'Stormbreaker', 'Alex Rider', any associated entities, or any copyrighted material pertaining therein is reasonably protected by the Copyright Act, and is not intended to infringe upon any copyrighted material.

**Pairing: **Eventual Alex/Yassen, Jack/ Unintroduced OC.

**AN: **I had someone assume Liam was Yassen. No he is not. I apologize for any misconceptions that may have popped up from this.

* * *

Alex lay staring at his roof that night, repetitively lifting and dropping a marble-sized metal ball on the coverlet beside him, considering the choices Liam had given him.

He rolled onto his side, still lifting and dropping the ball.

The storage unit had been one of the larger ones; lined wall to wall with boxes and furniture, a series of small paths zigzagging through the clutter. To the left of the roller door had been an old Ducati motorcycle, covered in dust. Liam had gone straight to the back where there were several old army ammo boxes.

He'd opened and closed a few of them, sometimes unwrapping an oil-clothe from a gun or knife. Of the several boxes opened, he'd removed a dozen or so knives with leather shelves and harnesses, four small pistols which were undoubtedly state-of-the-art when new, two boxes holding demountable scoped rifles, a variety of empty shells and bullet heads and a box holding an odd machine and a set of scales.

Then he'd noticed Alex watching him from his perch on a stack of boxes.

"Even if you choose not to kill the man, I'm a firm believer in 'better safe than sorry'." He had said. "I don't want you to be left a lamb to slaughter if I die. MI6 isn't the only organization that'll take an interest in you once they realise you exist. And they will now MI6 has a file on you."

Alex, himself, hadn't taken much from the storage unit. Just a couple of his father's jackets, a pair of leather vambraces with a slate of iron sheathed alone the outer edge of his wrists, an odd pendant of a diamond-studded snowflake with the Greek letter _Psi_**(1)**un-studded in the centre Liam said was a 21st birthday present to Helen from her parents (Apparently, Helen was oddly obsessed with that letter for more than a few years) and several stacks of photos from his parent's earlier years.

He had also learnt things from that visit that Ian had never told him about his father. Like that John had been a hardcore Trekkie. And Helen collected the original My Little Pony figurines and paraphernalia.

When the two had returned home, Alex had pushed what Liam had told him about choices to the back of his mind as the two sat down and Liam told the stories behind the pictures he was involved in or had been told about until late.

Still Alex stared at the ceiling of his room, knowing he would be going to school tomorrow regardless as to whether or not he had been awake until the early hours of the morning, trying to put a name to these confused feelings swirling around his mind.

"...I'm...angry." He murmured aloud to the dark room, the small metal ball having rolled off the bed some time ago. "Why am I so angry?"

And it was then that he knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself without the sense of closure killing Ian's murderer would give him.

*****

Almost two weeks to the day since Ian had died, Alex was perched on a rock formation overlooking a Sayle Enterprises compound in Cornwall, one of his father's high-velocity sniper rifles in front of him.

Liam was likewise perched in the remains of an abandoned cottage twenty metres to Alex's left, keeping in contact with one another via short-range radios.

-_You sure you're ready for this?- _Liam's voice murmured across the earpiece.

"Ready as I'll ever be." Alex murmured back, feeling oddly drained as he stared down the scope at the soon-to-be dead man's head.

-_Okay. Take your time. No rush. No pressure. If you miss, I'll take him down for you.- _

This had been Liam's only condition when teaching Alex how to snipe; if Alex failed, Liam would finish it before they could react. It would be the only chance Alex got for revenge.

If Alex managed to kill the target, Liam would take out anyone else who looked to be in charge.

Alex sighted his target and clicked the bolt down, bracing for the kick.

The target (Alex had stopped thinking of him as a man) stopped to shout at a worker, arms waving in the air.

As the teen's breath calmly finished expelling, he pulled the trigger.

Herod Sayle's head exploded with the force and calibre of the bullet as it continued through his cranium, through Nadia Vole's lower chest and into the concrete, painting the ground in a fine crimson mist for a good two metres.

A second shot rang out, removing Sayle's butler's head.

By the time a third bullet rang, finishing off Vole, Alex was almost finished dismantling his rifle and storing it in its box.

Thirty seconds after the initial shot, the rifle was away and so was Alex, leaping agilely down the other side of the rocky slope to the stolen car waiting on a sideroad.

One minute and ten seconds after the initial shot, Liam was in the car and they were gone.

And Alex felt empty, but oddly content with that.

*****

Looking down at the still-twitching corpse of his former employer, Yassen Gregorovich couldn't help but admire the balls and professionalism of the people responsible for this.

Still, SCORPIA likely wasn't going to be as impressed as he was.

* * *

**(1)** _Psi_: Shaped like a trident and the letter in the Greek alphabet for '_ps'_ as in '_lapse'_. Pronounced '_sigh'._ Assumed to be linked with the Rune '_Algiz_', presumably meaning '_elk'_. Oddly, it also represents Neptune.

In regards to Alex going for Sayle instead of Yassen, Liam is one of those people who blames the source for the results. Yassen was just the middle-man carrying out the orders given by Sayle, making Sayle ultimately responsible for Ian's death. He is also aware of Yassen's past with John Rider.

There may be a few time-skips after this. I don't particuarly like the idea of a fourteen-year-old shagging a thirty-something year old. Sixteen to eighteen I can deal with.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: 'Stormbreaker', 'Alex Rider', any associated entities, or any copyrighted material pertaining therein is reasonably protected by the Copyright Act, and is not intended to infringe upon any copyrighted material.

**Pairing: **Eventual Alex/Yassen, Jack/ Unintroduced OC.

**AN:** I've had to move this story to Rated 'M' because of the drug and alchohol abuse in this chapter. Alex won't stay morbid, he's just starting to define who he is. A sense of humor will pop up with his next mentor.

* * *

"Do you regret?"

Alex slowly slid his gaze across the room to look at Liam, who was standing beside the bed Alex was laying on, leaning against the wall, a cigarette to his lips as he stared listlessly out the window at the night rain, a half-empty bottle of absinthe on the bedside table.

Alex drew in a deep drag of his own cigarette before blowing a cloud of smoke into the air.

He thought about it.

"No." He blinked lazily at the ceiling. "But nor am I particularly happy. I feel...hollow."

Liam nodded. He knew what the kid meant.

"Nothing ventured; nothing gained. Feel no sorrow; feel no pain."

"Where'd that come from?" Alex murmured, reaching for the bottle of green alcohol.

Liam shrugged. "A song I heard. Music is one of my coping mechanisms."

"Huh..." Alex took a quick mouthful, grimacing as he swallowed. "What about cryptic remarks?"

"Nah." Liam took another drag, a smile hovering around his lips. "That's more Sin's thing. Morbid bint." He murmured affectionately.

Alex gave the man a sideways look. "Sin?"

"A member of the group I work with. She's a hunter-seeker who occasionally acts as backup for the rest of us. One of the best snipers in the world, though she seldom uses that talent."

Alex blinked up at Liam. He may have been utterly sloshed, and he was pretty sure the cigarettes had something other than tobacco in them, but he still heard _that_ tone in the man's voice.

His lips curled teasingly. "You like her."

The blue-eyed man slanted an amused look down at the languid boy, taking another drag. "She is very beautiful." He agreed mildly.

Alex chortled to himself and pulled himself up enough to comfortably stare out the window, thoughts of death and murder lost in the muddled haze of his mind.

*****

"-the decision of this Court that the guardianship of the minor, Alex Rider, go to his mother's cousin, Liam Grey, upon the minor's own request, until the minor reached the majority of eighteen years of age."

The gavel slammed down onto its rest, signifying the end of the four month long custody battle between Liam Grey and the Royal & General.

Alex walked out of the courtroom just behind Liam and to the left, Jack on the other side, an arm around his shoulders.

Liam, it seemed, had a 'friend' high up in the Immigration department, so, whilst MI6 was busy trying to get custody of Alex, this 'friend' had quietly pushed through Jack Starbright's VISA renewal notice, approved it and marked her as a 'guest' of someone high up (the number attached was attached to a strongly firewalled and protected so only the Queen could order it opened and only the 'friend' had the password. The file, behind all its protections, was empty but for a picture of a smiley face.), leaving MI6 unable to use Jack as collateral against Alex.

Alex briefly wondered how good a hacker this 'friend' was that they could do something like that from the other side of the world. And why they'd do something like this for Liam.

As Liam stopped to talk to their lawyer, Alex, and Liam as well he knew, subtly watched as Alan Blunt, head of MI6, walked towards the exit, a distinctly displeased air about him, followed by Mrs Tulip Jones, the head of Operations, and two bodyguards.

It was as they were about to leave the room that Mrs Jones happened to look into a panel and see the _knowledge_ in the eyes of the boy they'd tried to recruit that she had the feeling that they'd just been duped.

Having been a mother herself at one point, she was oddly alright with that.

_Good luck kid._

Alex turned back to the conversation.

Liam relaxed a little.

*****

Alex lay on the padded table, staring up at the blurring, twisting, seething colours on the ceiling of the room.

Sin sat on a comfortable waiting chair somewhere to the left, reading one of the mags left on the glass table.

The humming of the needle murmured in the room.

Red.

The deepest, vibrantest, darkest red edged in grey.

_-the endless curling snake that swallowed eternity, the Ouroboros-_

The tattooist delicately carved the scales of the blood and metal serpent into the hollow of his left hip, the size of his palm in circumference.

The colours on the ceiling swirled, giving the appearance of grey.

A par-empty green bottle was on the table beside him.

Seventeen.

A contract killer at seventeen.

Sin and Alder. Master and Apprentice. Mentor and Student.

Liam had taught him planning and strategy and weapons, but he wouldn't take that last piece of childhood in Alex, so he had asked Sin to take him, teach him, mould him more than a year ago.

He had followed Sin across most of Asia and Russia, being taught the finesse of rifles and knives, learning and developing his own preferences, signatures, styles, as they killed their way through a branch of the Triad who had pissed someone off, hunting more than fifty men and several women to the ground.

Like serial killers, the members of The Godless World each had preferred kills. Sin preferred long-term hunting jobs over any terrain, though she would flat-out refuse to kill children and bystanders. Anything else was fair game.

Everyone had different ways of dealing with the lifestyle, Liam had told him before he'd left. Sin read and listened to music and swam. Liam immersed himself in repetitive actions and chores.

Alex followed in his father's footsteps and immersed himself in a green Absinthe dreams.

He tilted his head to catch the woman's reflection in the glass of a display case.

Sin was a distant, poetic woman, cold as a distant star, with a savage, vicious, ruthlessness driving her. Tall and slender; graceful as a crane. Hair that hung like black water past her waist and eyes of the same liquid darkness as a seals' stark against her winter-hued skin.

She never smiled.

She had no reason.

_Wednesday's child, full of woe._

She was isolated, cold, shattered, and he was closer to her than anyone had ever understood. She had lost her parents, her sister, her friends, to the Yakuza, whom she had later hunted down, and she stood strong, pure in her beliefs, as horrific as they were. It was too late, yet she clung on, just as Alex did, and somehow, she was beautiful. She was cruel, she was miserable, she was lovely.

And yet, still she came achingly close to filling the void Helen Rider left, titled 'Mother'.

This, he knew, would be the last week he spent with her for a long time, though the bonds would remain.

Sin's loyalty was not a soft, faded, warm quality, but rather fierce, grasping, consuming, determined. She fought for what she wanted, and often, she won.

Alex had struggled and fought and bled and killed for that loyalty, just as Liam had, and obtained it.

It was worth it.

This tattoo she was gifting to him a symbol of her approval and loyalty.

A blood and metal serpent eating its own tail, spinning around an alder leaf.

The Alder King. The Erlking. A Huntsman.

John Rider was a Huntsman.

They called him Hunter.

The taste of absinthe lay heavy on his tongue as the needle hummed against his skin.

The colours swirled to grey.

Sin turned a page in the background.

* * *

In case you missed it, Alex was drunk on Absinthe in the first and last scenes. He is a morbid drunk.

Sin will mostly be a background character with few actual appearances later on. She has protective feelings towards Alex and at least attempts to stand in the position of 'mother', if distantly.

Please review.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**: 'Stormbreaker', 'Alex Rider', any associated entities, or any copyrighted material pertaining therein is reasonably protected by the Copyright Act, and is not intended to infringe upon any copyrighted material.

**Pairing: **Eventual Alex/Yassen, Jack/ Unintroduced OC.

My writing style has changed a little since I started this, so don't be surprised by the difference of this chapter to previous chapters.

* * *

Alex as Alder, under the guise of Aleksandr 'Shura' Ivanevich Volkov, lounged on the large expensive couch, arms wrapped around the waist of Sabriel 'Biri' Bilky, the seventeen-year-old daughter of an Italian businessman The Godless World had been hired to investigate by a private party. There were suspicions that her father was dealing with SCORPIA.

They were watching a random kiddie movie about a unicorn and a monkey and a dark-skinned girl called Dora while Biri's two-year-old twin brothers, Mike and Gabe, watched avidly from the floor, little mouths gaping as they stared.

Despite the nature of his mission, Alex was really quite fond of the twins, and Biri was more a best friend than an actual girlfriend, as they were both coming to see, but she was really quite soft and huggable...

So when Mr Bilky's indistinct voice started yelling in Italian from in the entry-way on the other end of the house, he sat up to hear better.

When the voice became afraid, Alex got up, gently shushing Biri, who was frowning and only now hearing her father, picked up Gabe, handed him to Biri and picked up Mike...

When the gunshot he half-expected came, Alex was quick to muffle Biri's surprised shriek and turn off the TV.

By the time the SCORPIA agents searched the lounge-room the four had occupied less than two minutes earlier, they were long gone out the patio door and the back gate.

When the police arrived, Mr Bilky was found in the entry-way, his brain pretty much on the floor, two maids were sprawled on the back lawn metres away from the open back gate, Mrs Bilky was dead in her bed, having been napping, and the third maid was found in the pantry where she'd tried to hide. The three younger Bilkys were only alive thanks to boyfriend 'Shura Volkov's' quick thinking.

The four of them, plus Jack (under the alias Tara Brown, Shura's guardian) were put into protective custody.

The bus they were on went missing en route.

The other passengers and the bus were found on a side road three hours later, the agents dead in their seats and the other passengers gassed. The driver was missing and the source of the gas was found in the air conditioning system.

That was the start of Alex's second identity as an assassin. Shura, dark haired and blue-eyed Shura, started hunting SCORPIA agents as revenge for his beloved Biri after being contacted by The Godless World, having learnt the ways of the world from the Moscow streets before his now missing parents could send him to the relative safety of America for schooling.

In reality, Alex was able to get through life pretty well with the added protection of his assumed identity, while Biri and the boys moved in with Jack and opened an underground weapons cache for the Godless agents.

A part of him still wonders if the boys, Michael and Gabriel, will one day become Godless agents, and if he would be around to be their mentor like Liam had been for him.

**(space)**

The first time Alex as Alder as Shura met Yassen Gregorovich was on a night train in Seattle.

They had both been sent to kill a CIA agent; Shura because he was dirty and knew the real identity of a Godless hacker, and Yassen because the agent had become a liability.

It had taken nearly twenty minutes of being huddled on the train bench, fiddling with his phone and listening to his music, before Alex had realised that he vaguely recognised the red-haired man in civvies as a SCORPIA assassin. He just wasn't sure which one.

Yassen, on the other, quite possibly bleeding, hand, didn't pay much attention to the likely foster-kid teenager, having passed him off as collateral with the intention to kill him on the way past to the target.

He certainly didn't expect the kid to jump up at the same black-out spot he'd chosen for the hit, sprint the short distance down the isle and spit the CIA agent on a fifteen inch knife he'd had holstered diagonally across his back, hilt down.

Shura didn't stop moving and was through the door into the next carriage in less than two seconds after he'd stood.

The place wasn't just chosen for the blackout, but also because the train was slowing for a station. Once in the next carriage, Shura pried the doors open and jumped, his right shoulder blade being clipped by the bullet from Yassen's gun.

**(space)**

The second time Alex and Yassen met was three months later in Amsterdam.

Alex was Alex this time, golden-brown curls and brown eyes.

He was hunting slavers.

Yassen was in his down time after completing a mission in Berlin.

Alex, by that point, was a well-built, athletic, very attractive young man bearing a face and build almost identical to that of his late father, John Rider.

The nightclub was dark and Alex had given up on finding any slavers that night and had wandered up to the bar for some of his unhealthy addiction, the green fairy named Absinthe, to sit on a stool next to a man with short blond hair.

Yassen, having long since learnt how to identify and react to threats while drunk, automatically catalogued the man's face, build and movement patterns as belonging to someone he unconditionally trusted and shifted over slightly to given John Rider more room to sit.

Alex relaxed next to the rather mellow, and dangerously attractive, older man and ordered his absinthe.

Neither was quite sure how it happened, but in under an hour later, the two were struggling out of their clothing in Yassen's hotel room across from the nightclub.

After several sessions, the two fell asleep.

Alex was the first to wake and found himself looking into a face he found strongly familiar in the dawn light peeking through the half-closed blinds.

His first thought was; _'SCORPIA assassin'_, followed by; _'SCORPIA assassin who nearly killed me in Seattle'_ and finally; _'Yassen Gregorovich, top SCORPIA assassin trained by John 'Hunter' Rider, aka my father'._

Being called 'John' mid-coitus suddenly made more sense, in a disturbing kind of way.

Alex really didn't want to know that much about his father's sex life. Especially since his father had been married to his mother prior to joining SCORPIA as a triple agent for both MI6 and Godless World.

Alex crawled out of bed and, after a moment's contemplation, decided he could just clean up in his own room.

He scrawled a note and left it on the pillow and dressed.

Yassen opened his blue eyes as the door closed, confused as to where John was going until reality hit hard, coldly informing him that John Rider had been dead for sixteen years.

After shuddering in suppressed grief for a few moments, Yassen reached over and read the note.

Moments later, the Russian assassin was on his feet and dragging his clothes on to rush out the door.

The note that fluttered gentle to the floor read:

_I am not my father, Yassen Gregorovich._

_A. Rider._

* * *

...Eh, I could have done better, but It's been a while since I worked on this, and I haven't transfered my '30 Seconds To Mars' cds to my new computer yet.


End file.
